PM: 3-tier system best way to avoid ‘misery’ of lockdown

BORIS Johnson insisted he wanted to avoid the “misery” of another national lockdown as he pressed local leaders in northern England to accept tougher coronavirus restrictions.

The Prime Minister clashed with Sir Keir Starmer over the Labour leader’s call for a short “circuit-breaker” lockdown aimed at getting the virus back under control. The testy exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions came as Greater Manchester’s leaders resisted efforts to place the city in the highest risk category, which would mean the closure of pubs and bars.

The PM’s new three-tier system of coronavirus restrictions for England came into effect yesterday, but the Liverpool City Region is the only area to be under the toughest rules.

Government health officials are expected to discuss with councillors in Greater Manchester and Lancashire whether to classify the areas as “very high”. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said that the Tier 3 restrictions are “fundamentally flawed” and “we won’t accept it”.

But in Lancashire, Tory county council leader Geoff Driver said it is “inevitable” his region would enter Tier 3.

The row came as a model by scientists advising the Government suggested that thousands of deaths could be prevented by a short national lockdown over half-term. They argued the coronavirus resurgence could be brought under control by the so-called circuitbreaker that would buy ministers time to improve the test and trace system.

Sir Keir’s decision to back a short lockdown has fractured the fragile consensus on the coronavirus response that existed at Westminster, and in the

Commons he suggested the Prime Minister’s failure to follow scientific advice had cost lives.

The Labour leader said that since the Sage scientific advisory panel’s advice was given on September 21 “the infection rate has quadrupled, hospital admissions have gone from 275 a day to 628 a day in England, yesterday 441 Covid patients were on ventilators and the number of deaths recorded was - tragically - the highest since June 10”.

“That’s the cost of rejecting the advice,” Sir Keir told Mr Johnson. The Prime Minister – who did not rule out the possibility of a circuit-breaker - accused Sir Keir of opportunism.

Defending the Government’s approach, he said: “The whole point is to seize this moment now to avoid the misery of another national lockdown – into which he wants to go headlong – by delivering a regional solution.”

And he urged Sir Keir to “get on to his Labour friends in those parts of the north of England where we want to work with them to put those very stringent measures in place in order to deliver the reductions that the whole country wants to see”.

Further pressure for the circuitbreaker came with a new paper produced by experts advising the Government. Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said it may be too late to implement a two-week circuit-breaker over the October school half-term but that December could be an option.